


come, robin hood

by cruellae (tinkabelladk)



Category: Persona 5
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, p5 royal spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:40:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25500748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinkabelladk/pseuds/cruellae
Summary: Akira’s gaze catches Goro's, and he looks into those stormy gray eyes. And Akira looks into him.“Lend me your power, Robin Hood,” Akira whispers.Robin Hood comes to Goro in a burst of dazzling light, like the blinding lamps on the stage of a talk show, the disorienting flash of a camera.And Akira...Akira sees it all.(P5 Royal spoilers)
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 54
Kudos: 591





	come, robin hood

**Author's Note:**

> my wip is giving me fits so here's a little something something while you wait

“You don’t use Robin Hood anymore, do you?” Akira asks. 

Goro glances at him. They’re sitting in a safe room in Maruki’s Palace, eating curry and drinking LeBlanc coffee, both of which, Goro has discovered, are surprisingly restorative. It’s a good thing, too. Infiltrating a Palace with just the two of them is grueling and dangerous. 

“I don’t,” Goro answers. Why hide it? “It was like your friends said, on Shido’s ship. I have two Personas, one for my hate and one for my lies. Well, I’m not lying anymore.” 

Akira smiles, like that answer makes him genuinely happy. Goro has no idea why, but Akira does seem to prefer his honest self to the polished Detective Prince disguise he spent so long perfecting. 

“Could you still summon him, though?” Akira asks. “If you wanted to.” 

“I don’t know,” Goro says. He hasn’t tried, not since that final battle against the Thieves. “Why?” 

Akira shrugs, giving him a sidelong glance. “Just wondering if you’d let me take him.” 

“Take him?” Goro raises his eyebrows, startled. He’s seen Akira charm other Shadows into joining him, but someone’s Persona? 

“My friends all had a kind of...Second Awakening,” Akira says, fiddling with his gloves. “They all got new Personas. They can’t switch, though. Even though their original Personas are still with them, they can’t use them. So they let me take them.” 

“Does that mean...they lost their original Personas?” Goro can’t imagine how that would feel, to lose such an integral part of oneself. 

“Nah. They’re still there.” Akira sets his fork down on his empty curry plate and pushes it aside. “It’s like how I took Pixie at the beginning of all this, and I’ve fought dozens of Pixies since.” 

“I see.” Goro sets his mostly empty plate aside. “Well. It makes sense, I suppose. Robin Hood is powerful; it will be a help on this infiltration if you can summon him.” 

“Cool.” 

Akira gets up and walks around to the other side of the table, taking the chair next to Goro. He sits so close that when Goro turns to face him, their knees brush together. It sends an odd jolt of something through Goro, but he ignores it. 

Akira tugs off his red gloves, then holds out his hands. Goro narrows his eyes warily, his own hands clenched into fists at his sides. 

“Do you trust me?” Akira asks. 

“No.” It’s only the truth. 

“Imagine what it would be like if you did,” Akira says, softly. His voice is tender, almost hypnotizing. “How it would feel. What you would do.” 

Goro closes his eyes and pictures it. A world where he could share his innermost self with Akira, where he could set his burdens at Akira’s side and be comforted and protected. And where Akira would trust him to do the same. 

He opens his eyes. Somehow his hands are in Akira’s, palm to palm, gloveless. 

Akira’s gaze catches his, and he looks into those stormy gray eyes. And Akira looks into him. 

“Lend me your power, Robin Hood,” Akira whispers. 

Robin Hood comes to Goro in a burst of dazzling light, like the blinding lamps on the stage of a talk show, the disorienting flash of a camera. 

And Akira...Akira sees it all. 

“He made you,” Akira says softly. He’s talking to the Persona, not to Goro. “You were what he thought he should be, what others wanted him to be. Isn’t that right?” 

Akira’s gaze holds Goro in place, helpless against the onslaught of his uncanny perceptiveness. It feels like he can see the moments that brought Robin Hood to life. The desperate need to create a personality that would be useful to Shido. The desire for the regard and adoration of as many people as possible, to fill the bottomless hole in his heart. The pathetic wish to be a hero, when he knew he was anything but. 

All of that is in Robin Hood, and now, all of it belongs to Akira. 

He sits back and releases Goro’s hands, and just like that the trance is broken. And Goro realizes what Akira has done. How deeply Akira has delved into his psyche, breaking walls he spent years building up. 

“Hmm,” Akira says, with that distant look in his eye that he gets when he’s “organizing” his Personas. “He’s really strong.” 

“What the fuck did you do to me?” 

Goro’s fingers close around the hilt of the dagger Akira left sitting in a sheath on the table, drawing it in a fluid motion. He presses it to Akira’s throat, his breath coming in great heaves, his entire body taut with fury and shame. 

“Oh, shit,” Akira murmurs. “They told me it can be kind of...intense. I’m sorry. I didn’t think…” 

“I should kill you,” Goro snarls. “I should…” 

_ Blood, spattered on the back wall, dripping from Akira’s forehead. His eyes, wide with terror and the shock of betrayal. The thud of his head falling limply to the metal table.  _

The knife clatters on the safe room floor, and Goro steps back, trembling. 

“Calm down.” Akira, who didn’t flinch even when the blade was at his throat, speaks softly like he’s coaxing a stray cat. “I didn’t mean to overstep. I’m sorry.” 

Goro leans back against the safe room wall, pressing his palms against the smooth white surface. Everything is so bright in this Palace, slick and unnatural. It reminds him of the many counselors and therapists he was forced to see over the years, all of them utterly uninterested in who he was or what he wanted. They cultivated Robin Hood’s lies as much as any other adult. 

“Hang on,” Akira says, leaning back in his seat with an earnest, pleading glance at Goro. “Look, how about this. I’ll let you take one of mine.” 

Goro laughs bitterly. “Don’t fuck with me, Joker. You know I don’t have that power.” And how he  _ hates  _ it, knowing that his rival has such a fantastic talent that he himself lacks. 

“Are you sure?” Joker asks.

“Of course I’m sure,” Goro snaps. 

“Have you ever tried?” Joker leans forward, one elbow on the table. “I bet you haven’t. The first step is showing mercy. That doesn’t really seem like your thing.” 

Goro narrows his eyes at the criticism, pretending to be only angry, and not also hurt by it. He still remembers Sumire’s shocked expression, the first time she saw him fight. The way she’d whispered to Joker— _ is he always like this?  _

It was what new foster parents usually said to the social worker, after they’d had Goro for more than a few days. 

“My ruthlessness doesn’t seem to bother you when I’m slaying your foes,” Goro says. 

“It never bothers me.” Joker smiles, bright and sly beneath the mask. “I like that about you, Crow.” 

“I...see.” Goro isn’t sure how to answer that—he is used to criticism or shallow adoration, but not this simple regard. 

“Just try it,” Joker says. His gray eyes find Goro’s, lingering like a caress. His force of will, usually hidden in the real world, is as vibrant as a neon light in the shimmering distortions of the Metaverse. Like this, it’s impossible to deny him anything. 

Carefully, Goro approaches, sits again facing Joker. 

“I don’t know how,” he admits. 

“You’ll figure it out.” Joker holds out his hands. 

After a long moment of deliberation, Goro takes them. He wants to find the answer to this riddle, to know if this power lies within his heart. 

_ To know if he can be Akira’s equal.  _

“Do you trust me?” he asks, parroting Akira’s earlier words. 

Joker huffs a soft laugh. “Not even a little.” 

“Smart.” Goro reaches out and pulls Joker’s mask away from his face, because it feels like the right thing to do. “How about this. Would you follow my lead?” 

“I don’t know.” Joker hesitates. “Maybe.” 

Goro takes a deep breath. He can feel the currents of the Metaverse flowing around them, through them, and he lets the tugging in his chest be the guide. For once, he isn’t ten steps ahead, and he doesn’t think or plan or calculate his path there. 

He just speaks. 

“Imagine that you can,” he says, looking into Joker’s eyes. “Imagine that you can set down your burden, the burden of being our leader, and follow me instead. Imagine that you can trust me enough to do that.” 

Joker’s gaze softens, his hands resting gently over Goro’s, palm to palm. 

“Lend me your power,” Goro whispers. “Metatron.” 

The angel appears before him, shining like silver, his bladed wings sweeping in a wide arc over Akira’s head. Goro reaches out—not with his hand but with his heart, and  _ beckons _ . 

He’s suffused with righteous rage, Akira’s fury at the world that scorned him, disowned him, discarded him, betrayed him, and left him for dead. It burns through Goro like holy fire, and leaves him breathless but somehow cleansed. 

Akira’s hands slip from his, but Goro can feel Metatron deep within himself, waiting to be summoned. 

“Wow,” Akira says, blinking hard like he’s waking from a particularly vivid dream. “That is intense. I get why it freaked you out.” 

“You’re angry,” Goro says, his chest still flushed and full from the new presence in his psyche. “I never realized how angry you are. You’re angry at the entire world, aren’t you?” 

Akira shrugs one shoulder, sheepishly. “We better get back to it. I have school tomorrow.” 

“Alright,” Goro says. “Let’s catch one more fight before we go. Just to try things out.” 

Akira grins at him, and he feels himself grinning back. A world of possibilities has just opened up. 

**Author's Note:**

> I call bullshit that one Trickster gets the whole menagerie and the other doesn't. What kind of rigged game is that?


End file.
